Yesterday, I had a start to the day I could well do without. I woke up some time before 5.00am and immediately discerned that something was amiss as my clock radio was not showing the time. After a bit of investigation, I discovered that the entire power circuits in the house (but not the lighting circuits) were 'down' My first port of call was evidently the RCB in the garage where all of the switches were 'up' except one which evidently controlled the power circuits which was in the 'down' position. I tried to flick it up but it immediately sprang down again and I thought it was best not to be forced. So I got up myself up and dressed, texted my son with my dilemmas and got a little battery operated radio to work so I could tune into some news and then made a request to an emergency electrician which according to the web was a family owned concern, good quality ratings and did emergency call-out work. Then my son came around, flicked up the switch on the RCB with the requisite amount of pressure and all of my power was restored. My relief was palpable but I think I need a good consultation with neighbours to see if they have a regular and reliable electrician on their books so that I know who to contact when the next emergency occurs. As I was waiting for my son to arrive, the news of the Runcorn and Helby by-election came through after a recount. Reform won this by six votes (it was by 4 votes until the Labour party demanded a full recount) and this must be one of the closest by-elections of all time. The Labour Party activists and canvassers on the ground report dismay at Labour policies with the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance head of the list of grievances and it is no surprise to me that the Labour Party gets a bloody nose whilst the number of Reform MPs has gone up from 4 to 5. Most of the counting of Thursday's vote will not take place until Friday so the analysis and post-mortems will come later in the day. It could well be that the fine weather is coming to a close today with a risk of a thunderstorm so it is touch and go whether I put Meg outside in her 'good' wheelchair to enjoy a breath of fresh air.
In the morning, I popped out for a few minutes to pick up our daily newspaper and some supplies and got back in time for our Eucharistic minister to call around and perform a little service for Meg. This is the third day in which Meg has been asleep a lot of the time and the care workers are reporting this back to their manager. He has sent out a 'groupnote' chat so that all carers are aware of Meg's gradual decline and has been rather appalled by the poor oversight offered to us by our doctors. He has got onto them to 'suggest' that Meg should now be an Oromorph routine (for when Meg is in pain when handled onto the bed via the hoist) He has also requested a home visit as he felt the doctors should be prescribing (or in Meg's case, not really prescribing) adequate pain relief and the GP practice have texted me to say that a request to visit is in the system. I am fortunate, if that is the right word, that one of the middle-aged care workers nursed her own grandmother to her death (by dementia) and is aware of all of the final stages and impending signs for me to look out for. She is a great source of both first hand knowledge and also emotional support and I am very grateful. It looks as though the various parts of the care agency are pulling out the stops to care for Meg and this is really appreciated.
In the course of the morning, I have had the local election results coming through as the vote is counted. The newly formed Reform party (in the past UKIP and then the Brexit party) has made massive gains and even quite sober analysts such as Sir John Curtice are talking about a game-changing election as well as being a 'turning point' in British politics. To illustrate this, then in the case of Staffordshire County Council, then at the time of writing this, some 42/62 seats have already been declared in Staffordshire, a traditional Tory run council. Reform taken 33 seats out of the 66 and the Conservatives 9 but this is a dramatic turn around. Reform has been taken votes from the Conservative party (as in evident in the case of Staffordshire and no doubt other county councils) and also from the Labour party where people have been expressing dissatisfaction with the Labour party. One can well understand the disillusionment of the electorate with the Labour party as constantly on the doorsteps, the issues that come up are the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance, the threatened cut back to disability benefits and the trashing of the local rural economies in the case of inheritance tax. One Labour MP has observed that the electorate voted for change when voting for Brexit without seeing any benefits, voted for Boris Johnson with no real change being observed in the lives of 'ordinary' people, then voted for the Labour party who advertised 'Change' but none of this has happened but Reform does appear that they might deliver some kind of radical change for the electorate who have evidently voted for them in great numbers. It is normally said that local elections are no guide to the next general election, but the large majority secured by the Labour party has been dubbed a 'loveless' vote. Lincolnshire has now followed Staffordshire as being won by the Reform party so what seemed to be moonshine only a few weeks ago now seems a real possibility that Reform could challenge the two major parties and even win the next general election. The analysis on the airwaves at the moment is that the Labour party is in a real 'funk' as the leadership seems not to be listening either to their own back benchers or to the electorate and seem to many of the electorate, and particularly, the Labour voters to be like some kind of Conservative party and not particular competent at that. This happens when you have a large majority and now that Reform is proving to be so successful, will the Labour Party be encouraged to adopt some form of electoral reform?
© Mike Hart [2025]